Perseverance pays off for Great Bear Resources
By Frank Giorno
Great Bear Resources, the Vancouver-based exploration company, had a difficult time raising exploration funds in the early days of its inception but it has weathered the storm and its net value today is worth more than $800 million, based on drilling results.
After a few different companies held the project and drilled over many years, a, Great Bear’s geologists decided to analyze more closely the surrounding rock that had never been thoroughly tested and found it was teaming with gold.
The company drilled at an area known as “the LP fault”. Incredibly this area had never in the history of mining in the Red Lake area ever been drilled before. Great Bear drilled more than 440 holes in the area – and every single drilled hole contained gold.
By overturning conventional wisdom that gold in Red Lake was found only in quartz veins, Great Bear Resources turned their fortunes around.
“There was high-grade gold that was just sitting there, already drilled, waiting for us,” said Chris Taylor, Great Bear Resources, President and CEO.
Great Bear found that the LP fault was uniform and large, that were quite unlike the usual Red Lake deposits, that were in narrow veins, haphazardly dispersed. This geological feature indicated the ore could be extracted in a bulk underground operation, potentially making it much cheaper than traditional, underground stope mining method.
“It was obvious to us that we had a major gold find that others had just totally missed because it’s in a different suite of rocks [than what] everybody else mines in Red Lake,” Taylor said.
Today the 100% owned flagship Dixie project boasts one of the largest recent gold discoveries in a Canadian mining jurisdiction. Proximal to major infrastructure near the town of Red Lake, Ontario, the Dixie property comprises over 91.4 square kilometres of contiguous claims that extend over 22 kilometres, which runs parallel to a paved highway and provincial power and natural gas lines. The property also hosts a network of well-maintained logging roads which facilitate access.
To date, Great Bear has completed over 700 drill holes, identifying four high-grade gold discoveries. The most significant discovery is the large-scale “LP Fault” zone, which comprises high-grade disseminated gold mineralization within broad moderate-to-lower-grade envelopes in felsic volcanic and sediment units. LP Fault drilling has identified gold mineralization along 11 kilometres of strike length to date, and a detailed drill grid is being completed along approximately 4 kilometres of strike length. The nearby “Hinge” and “Limb” gold zones are more characteristic of the renowned Red Lake mined deposits, comprising gold-bearing quartz veins and silica-sulphide replacement zones hosted by mafic volcanic units. Over 80% of the Company’s drill holes into the LP Fault, Dixie Limb and Hinge zones contain visible gold mineralization. Gold occurs mainly as free gold, neither bound to nor within sulphide minerals.
With Phase 1 drilling now in it’s rearview mirror some analysts’ predictions believe Dixie has the potential to be one of the largest gold discoveries in decades.
In early October of 2021 Great Bear Resources reported results from its ongoing fully funded $45 million 2021 exploration program at its 100% owned flagship Dixie Project in the Red Lake district of Ontario.
Taylor said, “Our systematic deep drilling of the LP Fault along 1.4 kilometres of strike length has successfully intersected the target geology with gold mineralization in all areas. These results establish significant continuity of both high-grade and bulk tonnage style gold over a broad area at depth, which remains open to extension in all directions. The LP Fault has no geological analogs in the Red Lake district, with the closest being the Hemlo gold deposit located near Marathon, Ontario.”
Seven new drill holes are representative of deeper LP Fault mineralization across a broad area of 1.4 kilometres of strike length between approximately 450 and 750 metres downhole depth. Deeper drilling will continue along an additional 2.6 kilometres of strike length during the ongoing Phase 2 program.
The same pattern of high-grade domains surrounded by lower grade envelopes are observed as had previously been drilled at shallower depths.
Highlights included:
• These new drill holes are not infill drilling, and significantly extend gold mineralization to depth on their respective drill sections.
• New drill hole BR-385 intersected multiple high-grade gold domains, including 157.00 g/t gold over 1.20 metres from 696.45 to 697.65 metres downhole, within a broader interval of 41.76 g/t gold over 5.15 metres from 696.45 to 701.60 metres.
• The total mineralized interval using the same calculation criteria applied to the shallow LP Fault zone since its discovery (i.e. composite intervals cannot include more than 3 metres assaying less than 0.10 g/t gold) is 6.90 g/t gold over 36.95 metres from 673.25 to 710.20 metres downhole.
• However, given the greater depths explored by these drill holes, a more relevant interval that excludes peripheral bulk tonnage style gold mineralization and may be more representative of any future potential underground development scenarios is 11.01 g/t gold over 22.85 metres from 678.75 to 701.60 metres downhole.
• New drill hole BR-386 intersected 16.92 g/t gold over 4.90 metres from 525.00 to 529.90 metres downhole, within a broader interval of 2.21 g/t gold over 49.55 metres from 522.45 to 572.00 metres downhole.
• New drill hole BR-411 intersected 13.84 g/t gold over 3.15 metres from 459.15 to 462.30 metres downhole.
• BR-411 is significant as it intersects high-grade gold below the “Gap” area of the LP Fault, and is over 500 metres above the deepest LP Fault intercept to-date in previously reported drill hole BR-260 (March 29, 2021) which assayed 15.57 g/t gold over 3.05 metres from 942.20 to 945.25 metres downhole. More drilling is required to determine if both intercepts occur along a controlling plunge within the same high-grade gold domain.
• New drill hole BR-384 intersected multiple mineralized intervals including 50.50 g/t gold over 1.00 metre from 587.50 to 588.50 metres downhole, and 6.71 g/t gold over 6.30 metres from 687.50 to 693.80 metres downhole. The total mineralized interval was 3.97 g/t gold over 17.50 metres from 687.50 to 705.00 metres downhole.
Seventeen additional drill holes intersected the shallow LP Fault along 3.6 kilometres of strike length.
Most of these targeted the bulk tonnage style envelope adjacent to higher-grade domains for resource delineation purposes.
Highlights include:
• Eastern LP Fault (Viggo area) drill hole BR-379 intersected 1.84 g/t gold over 28.05 metres from 101.35 to 129.40 metres downhole. This included high-grade intervals of 15.90 g/t gold over 1.00 metre from 101.35 to 102.35 metres downhole and 28.70 g/t gold over 0.50 metres from 123.50 to 124.00 metres downhole.
• This drill hole is significant as it adds bulk tonnage style gold mineralization at shallow depths to this area. A steeply plunging area of stronger gold mineralization is currently being defined here (see news release of August 25, 2021).
• Drill holes characterizing additional shallow bulk tonnage style mineralization are summarized in Table 2 on their website and include:
o BR-425 which intersected 1.09 g/t gold over 80.55 metres from 62.50 to 142.75 metres downhole,
o BR-441 which intersected 1.08 g/t gold over 30.25 metres from 13.00 to 43.25 metres downhole, and
o BR-443 which intersected 0.55 g/t gold over 66.20 metres from 38.50 to 104.70 metres downhole.
Ongoing Phase 2 LP Fault Expansion Drilling/Upcoming Reports
• With the 42 new drill holes contained in this release, Great Bear has reported 446 LP Fault drill holes. Including in-progress drill holes, Great Bear has completed 300,000 metres of drilling at the Dixie property to-date.
• Phase 1 drilling consisted of 440 LP Fault drill holes and was completed in July 2021. The program was designed to support mineral resource estimation along approximately 4 kilometres of strike length to a depth of approximately 450 metres.
• Phase 2 drilling is designed to expand LP Fault gold mineralization between approximately 450 and 900 metres depth over approximately 4 kilometres of strike length.
• Great Bear will continue Phase 2 expansion drilling with the goal of significantly expanding the drill confirmed extent of gold mineralization at the LP Fault by late 2022.
• Other Phase 2 drilling will include regional drilling of new targets, and mineral resource definition and expansion drilling of the Dixie Limb and Hinge zones. The Company is fully funded for this work.
In addition to regular releases detailing Phase 2 drill results, deliverables for 2022 are expected to include: 1) a maiden mineral resource estimate in accordance with NI 43-101 of the LP Fault zone Phase 1 drilling, 2) a Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) of the LP Fault zone, and 3) a mineral resource update which will include deeper drill results from the LP Fault, plus maiden mineral resource estimates for the Dixie Limb and Hinge zones.
The 23 high-grade domains that were discussed in this release are structurally and geologically distinctive from the surrounding lower grade, bulk tonnage style gold mineralization. Together, they span a strike length of 4.2 kilometres and occur within larger stratigraphically controlled lower grade domains. They are characterized by high degrees of strain and/or transposed quartz vein zones following two distinct structural fabrics and transition from upper greenschist to lower amphibolite facies metamorphism. Gold in the high-grade domains is generally observed as free gold, is often transposed into, and overgrows the dominant structural fabrics, and is higher-grade on average than the surrounding bulk tonnage gold zones.
Gold market analysts are excited about the Dixie Property’s future potential. The Dixie Project discovery may lead geologists to rethink future gold exploration in Red Lake and elsewhere.
“What they’re describing not only is unlike Red Lake, but is unlike Canada,” said John Tumazos, an analyst with Very Independent Research LLC.
Great Bear has approximately $80 million in cash on hand and is funded through 2022. Its share value increased from a low of $0.25 Cdn on May 1, 2018, to a high of $19.87 Cdn on June 1, 2020. Today the stock has been valued between $16.50 Cdn and $17.00 Cdn.
There is an abundance of optimism at the Dixie Project as drilling results continue to prove its worth as the next potential Canadian gold producer. Many investors are anxiously waiting for Great Bear Resources to release its maiden resource estimate report in the first half of 2022. Potential investors then have a more solid picture of how lucrative a future Dixie Mine operation could be.
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